In CMM’s Expert Opinion Tim Cahill sets out where we are and where we are heading

While much of the academic argument around ChatGPT and its emerging ilk is about the impact on teaching and learning, Tim Cahill (Research Strategies Australia) points to extraordinary changes in research.

Not all of it is good – ask a question of a probability based language programme and it will respond on all the information it can access – and create nonsense. Dr Cahill points to a case where an AI tech created references to articles in journals by authors he knows, with “titles completely plausible and on point.” “But they are entirely fictitious. Cross-check them against them against the listed authors publication records. They do not exist.”

That’s some of the bad news – some of the extraordinary news is what can happen as developers build on ChatGPT-type technologies.

Like AI’s inventing patentable products and taking 18 months to predict the structure of every protein catalogued by science.

The good news for researchers, Dr Cahill suggests is that their work will be “future-looking,” work  “that only humans can do – and that’s a really exciting space.”

But the challenge for research leaders is how to harness the new tools, “to accelerate their agendas”
“Whoever can harness these technologies first is going to as an order of magnitude advantage over everyone else.”

The complete interview with Dr Cahill is HERE.